PHOTOGRAPH INFO

This is a short visual story about a classic American house that seems to stand still in time. So much history here! The larger versions are full of detail.

Post-processing: Shot with the Canon EOS 5D and the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens at varying focal lengths, ISO 100, varying f/stops and shutter speeds. (If you want details on a particular image please ask.) Curves adjustments, color balancing.

Thank you for visiting Durham Township!

--Kathleen

Nicely done reminders of a day mostly gone by. The outhouse must be the lady's room....done in pink and a double so they can visit together!

really nice pictures. They do justice to the house.

Nice series!

A great slice of rural America. You did great job of giving us a feel for the traditional character of the house.

Is the outhouse his'n hers?

Wow, this is an excellent series. I'm from York County, PA, and this series completely reminds me of home. Great, great, great work.

Really interesting and different! I like the aprons hanging in the kitchen window as curtains.. and the almost 'frozen in time' look of the bedroom. Is this home occupied? Where is it located?
Thanks!

what a series. I love the porch swing and the last shot of the home. Fantastic photos.

Reminds me of my growing up days in and around Valentine, Nebraska. Love it.
Wes.

Any one of these would count as one of my favorite of your images. Together, they're mind-boggling

I am reminded of a farmhouse my family stayed at when I was a kid in the early 70s. coming from a tract house in the suburbs, it was quite an interesting place. First (and last?) that I had milk fresh from the cow (I remember asking for ice cubes!). Just beautiful

What a wonderful set, Kathleen. Really lovely.

Of all of them, I think I really like the second to last one best. It really stands on it's own. Lovely textures and nice soft tones.

-Jason

I think the shot with the swing is my favorite, although they are all great. Love you work!

A great tour of this house, reminds me of my great-grandmother's old house.

Sigh...My kind of house! I especially love the porch swing, that's my favorite.

Between roaming the wooded hills, catching crawdads in the creek or sandlot baseball, summers days were punctuated by drinks of cold well water while looking out kitchen windows that varied little from these.

On a porch swing the twin of this one, I read yellowed pages of hardbound hand-me-down volumes. Twain, Boroughs and Doyle, illustrated by Wyeth and imagination.

Postcards were tangible links to mysterious people and places, and we had the time to look at them and dream of journeys that might someday happen.

The bedroom, less the AC & TV represents the look and feel of the entire home. It looked like home, it felt like home--even if you were visiting, it was home.

Often the most insignificant looking building on the property, but with no well and it's house, you built no home.

Summer afternoons went on forever, there was time to look at (and smell) the roses. The road that lead past the house might not produce a passing car all afternoon. If a car did pass, you recognized the driver and the passengers. You knew they had gone swimming, or to the Dairy Queen or were coming home from church.

Never saw a "daily double," painted or otherwise. (Guess the spicy food buff leaned to the right.)

The shed window is honored to provide the this vision. Less than a dozen years of my life were spent in that world.

Basements full of canned garden produce, pump organs that adults endured while children delighted in trying to find new sounds by "pulling out all the stops!" Guitars on the porch at evening. Patched holes in the siding form Civil War bullet holes. Sunday dinners that filled the yard with cars, the porch with relatives and the steps with watermelon seeds. The sky was blue overhead, the thunderheads were in the distance. Funny, how so much history gets forgotten.....and then recalled.

Thank you, Kathleen.

Fantastic set Kathleen! The porch swing has such a classic feel to it. Wonderful house and property.

You come to the kitchen sink every day. It is part of life, part of your family life. You add pieces of that life and that love in the window for all the world to see. You are happy and content. You see the many skies created as the time passes by and you leave your mark for those who follow.

Come sit in the porch swing with the love of your life. You see the pink hydrangea, smell the sweet honeysuckle and hold each other close. You are not the first couple to swing here but the swing does not complain. The spirits of those before smile at what they see. True love has been reborn.

History presents itself through the eyes of a child. Many have sent their feelings to someone now grown fragile and old. The signatures contained here are now inscribed upon markers in a cemetery nearby. Pick up the book and be young again.

Who hangs above the fireplace? Is it anyone we know? You use the best of modern conveniences yet keep your favorite possessions from times gone by. Your touch is in this room, from the lace curtains to the crocheted comforter and the needle point seat. The sofa and chair were brought here from another home to bring you comfort during your final hours.

The borders of this field reveal its age; the trees show you life and death with the portal of hope between them. Life grows beyond. Pass through the opening and celebrate with those who have come before you. Don't be afraid, this is a place of love.

The fragile life of a family is shown in the fragile life of a rose. The flowers burst into being, flourish, weaken and then fall. Gather the petals and preserve them for they will tell the history of our time on earth.

Come sit with me and remember a simpler time. Everything we need is close at hand. There is room for both of us. I'll take the pink side if it causes you concern. Our history lies in the conveniences of our years.

You are always welcome here. The root cellar, asbestos shingles, tin roof and chimneys remain. They steadfastly withstand this modern world. Embrace your history and share in your future. Bring your family, both young and old. Enjoy the cool lemonade. We have all that you require but don't be in a hurry. Love and life are waiting for those who take the time to learn from the past.

Wisława Szymborska
"A Great Man's House"

It was written in marble in golden letters:
here a great man lived and worked and died.
He laid the gravel for these paths personally.
This bench — do not touch — he chiseled by himself
out of stone.
And — careful, three steps — we're going inside.

He made it into the world at just the right time.
Everything that had to pass, passed in this house.
Not in a high rise,
not in square feet, furnished yet empty,
amidst unknown neighbors,
on some fifteenth floor,
where it's hard to drag school field trips.

In this room he pondered,
in this chamber he slept,
and over here he entertained guests.
Portraits, an armchair, a desk, a pipe, a globe, a flute,
a worn-out rug, a sun room.
From here he exchanged nods with his tailor and
shoemaker
who custom made for him.

This is not the same as photographs in boxes,
dried out pens in a plastic cup,
a store-bought wardrobe in a store-bought closet,
a window, from which you can see clouds better
than people.

Happy? Unhappy?
That's not relevant here.
He still confided in his letters,
without thinking they would be opened on their
way.
He still kept a detailed and honest diary,
without the fear that he would lose it during a
search.
The passing of a comet worried him most.
The destruction of the world was only in the hands
of God.

He still managed not to die in the hospital,
behind a white screen, who knows which one.
There was still someone with him who remembered
his muttered words.

He partook of life
as if it were reusable:
he sent his books to be bound;
he wouldn't cross out the last names of the dead from
his address book.
And the trees he had planted in the garden behind
the house
grew for him as Juglans regia
and Quercus rubra and Ulmus and Larix
and Fraxinus excelsior.

Translated, from the Polish, by Joanna Trzeciak

Old outhouse kicks ass!

Once again, you're photos are like an escape from my world, and into yours (or whomevers your photographing).

This is the happiest I've been while visiting your site in a while.

what do you mean by color-balancing?

Lovely. I've relived moments with my grandmother...thank you for sharing such beauty through your talent.

beautiful series. i looove the first one!

I'm still impressed of 5D quality...

Robert: There is a second outhouse next to the pink one which I suspect is the men's room. Didn't photograph that one.

Betsy: The home is unoccupied most of the time. As such I'm hesitant to say where it is, since it's jam-packed with antiques and other treasures. It's a sitting duck.

Jordan: There's a "color-balancing" tool in Photoshop that allows for dramatic or subtle tonal changes to images. You can find it under Image --> Adjustments --> Color Balance.

so many beautiful and real things to look in this set, i am enjoying it. there is a feel and a smell you get with the pics of this home. Comes alive in the details. i also love what looks like a little SMURF house in the middle of a penned in field. Great one-

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